It’s been a great decade for Satya Nadella (’90 MS Computer Science), who became CEO of Microsoft Corp. in February 2014. Since then, he has led the company to its current height of success, and the company is now valued at $3. Trillion.
His recent honors from last year include:
- Made by Microsoft Time magazine’s list of this year’s most influential companies highlights the company’s significant investments in artificial intelligence. (Nadella was featured on Time 100’s list of Most Influential People in 2018.)
- CNN Business named Nadella CEO of the Year over other prominent businessmen. That’s because Nadella was the first to commercialize AI tools like ChatGPT and add them to his product line, influencing the commercial direction of AI, according to CNN’s panel.
- Georgia Tech awarded Nadella an honorary doctorate.
The company’s rise has coincided with support for STEM education and automation research at UWM, with the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences being a major recipient.
“Microsoft’s support of UWM has revolved around some of the same priorities that have driven the company’s business over the past decade,” said Brett Peters, dean of UWM’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. . “For example, Microsoft donated credits for Azure, the company’s leading cloud processing software service, to his Connected Systems Institute at UWM. And Sathya and his wife Anu have donated generous support to local students. We are expanding our efforts and focusing on workforce development and diversity.”
Supporting UWM research
Microsoft is a key partner of UWM’s Connected Systems Institute (CSI). CSI is a statewide research hub that brings together academia, industry, and government to solve real-world problems using the Industrial Internet of Things.
In 2019, Microsoft provided UWM with more than $1.5 million in cash, Microsoft Azure cloud computing credits, and Surface Hub devices to advance CSI.
Microsoft followed this up with a second $1.2 million donation to CSI in January 2024. This donation will be used to educate Wisconsin’s Industry 4.0 manufacturing talent pipeline. This will enable small and medium-sized manufacturers to integrate new technologies such as the Internet of Things, AI, and smart robotics into their production processes.
“CSI, with support from Microsoft, has rapidly entered the AI space with the hope of providing tangible technology solutions to manufacturers,” said Balamurugan Balakreshnan, Chief AI Officer at Microsoft. states. “For example, CSI recently completed research into AI vision systems and introduced an AI chatbot to CSI that helps manufacturers quickly access information on the shop floor.”
Shamar Webster (’23 MS Computer Science) worked with Balakreshnan to create Factory Chatbot last fall, his final semester before graduation.
Scholarships for students from underserved communities
In 2021, Nadella and his wife Anu Nadella also donated $2 million to support scholarships for undergraduate students from marginalized and underserved communities, including computer science, data We have prepared students with the skills to pursue careers in science and information technology. This endowment will fund expanded student services such as advising, mentoring, and tutoring, as well as emergency grant support to help students continue to successfully pursue their degrees.
Finally, this gift supports preschool programming to encourage students from marginalized and underserved communities to enroll in these STEM fields.
The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences welcomed the first and second batch of scholarship recipients with full scholarships in Fall 2022 and Fall 2023, respectively.
Nadella grew up in southern India and earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Mangalore University. He moved to the US to study at his UWM. In 2013, one year before he was named CEO, Microsoft won the UWM Chancellor’s Innovation Award for his leadership of Microsoft’s Servers & Tools division. From 2021, the position of chairman has been added.
